After the Stampede we took a few days slowly making our way south back to the States, relaxing after what had been a manic week of camping one place per night across the Rockies followed by the fun of Calgary.

Which reminds me I’m long overdue for a map update:

Our trip up until Calgary

Unfortunately it’s not very accurate as Google will only let me put in 8 destinations and I tried using MapQuest and failed miserably. But you get the idea!

After a free bacon and pancake breakfast in town we headed south, camped for a night at a lake and then drove further south the next day.

Saw this walking back from the pancake breakfast. Bye Calgary!

Because I have a super lame obsession with pioneer villages (as a child I was completely besotted with Sovereign Hill in Victoria) we stopped at the Bar U Ranch. Established in 1881, Bar U was one of the leading cattle and draft horse ranches in Canada for 70 years. It is still perfectly preserved.

And super cute.

Ye olde wagon

Ye olde tractor

Inside the homestead:

Want all of this

The cowboys’ sleeping quarters

the kitchen

I could look at photos of Bar U allllllll day. But I won’t bore you with them all.

A few days after wishing I lived in a romanticised version of a bygone era we drove over the border (stopped only briefly to be lectured on why our contraband red capsicum could bring down the entire US economy) into Montana.

I really appreciate a decent state border sign

We camped at St Mary’s on the east entrance to Glacier National Park (the American one this time).

The next day we did the 17km round trip hike to Iceberg Lake. For most of the hike this is what we could see:

And then we came upon this:

What.

Insane. I mean, it’s called Iceberg Lake, but seeing icebergs in America in July is kind of surprising. And amazing. Cue visuals!

It was cold, to say the least! The wind kind of whipped around the lake and into your face.

We stayed as long as we could stand the cold and I took many stupid photos, not releasing my GoPro was in ‘burst’ mode (meaning it takes 30 consecutive photos). Example:

What a masterpiece

The next day we set out to hike the 19km Highline Trail, as recommended by the friends we met at Mt Rainier. The weather was pretty bad, but seeing as the words “most favourite hike ever” had been bandied about we didn’t want to miss out.

This was a mistake.

For most of the hike this was the view:

Except for when the view was worse. We got soaked, essentially hiking through a rain cloud.

At the 12th kilometre we reached a chalet with a roaring fire. I never wanted to leave.

The view was still shrouded in cloud though.

Apart from maybe high school, I don’t have never been more relieved to finish anything in my life. We got the shuttle from the end of the hike back to our car and saw more impressive views from the window. Ugh. You win some, you lose some.

We got back to our car, took some photos from the parking lot and then drove back to camp to warm up.

These are some of the tour cars people use to get around, pretty cool!

The sad part is it’s estimated that all of Glacier’s glaciers will be melted by 2030. So scary. So I urge you all to go there asap and see Iceberg Lake. It really is magical.